


You Would Never Call Me Baby (If You Knew Me Truly)

by th_esaurus



Category: Captain America (Movies)
Genre: Consent Issues, Implied Domestic Violence, M/M, Prostitution
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-05-15
Updated: 2014-05-15
Packaged: 2018-01-24 23:16:35
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,330
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1620497
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/th_esaurus/pseuds/th_esaurus
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>When a fella asked him what he did, he replied that he was a boxer. "You win a lotta fights?"</p><p>"Yeah," Bucky spat. "All of 'em."</p>
            </blockquote>





	You Would Never Call Me Baby (If You Knew Me Truly)

**Author's Note:**

> For Blayne.

There is an extraction period. The American is, after all, a soldier, a specialist, a source of knowledge. Zola managed to bleed out his name, rank and serial number last time, but he has loftier goals after that particular failure. It’s rare to have a second chance.

“Sergeant Barnes,” he says. “Tell me everything.”

*

Sergeant Barnes—no, long before then. James. Bucky. Bucky was a creature of habit.

Modern do-gooders might frown down the corners of their mouths and say he had a drinking problem, but he considered himself a good-time guy. Always a pack of cigarettes in the jacket pocket of his twelve-buck suit, always matchbooks in the seat of his pants, stamped with bar names in faded ink.

He couldn’t stick a nine-to-five job. Cash in hand, mostly. He tried real hard to find something more settled after Steve’s ma died, but it wasn’t for him. Not his lifestyle.

After Steve’s ma died—their income took a hit. She was never supporting Bucky, it wasn’t that. He’d accepted a brown bag here and there, jeez. But he moved in three weeks after the funeral. The stress was niggling at Steve’s lungs.

He’d spent a stint in hospital. Bucky paid for it. Told Steve there was money left from his Ma’s funeral fund. But there wasn’t. It was okay. It wasn’t a big deal. They were short on rent already; he didn’t mention it to Steve.

Bucky was a creature of habit, but that didn’t mean he couldn’t try and break the mould he’d been set into.

He read about Henry Armstrong's third title in the papers. Ripped out the shoddy photo of the guy and pinned it to their bathroom mirror. It was always nailed up too high for Steve, who could only ever see above his top lip in the damn thing. Bucky thought about taking a hammer to the whole cabinet but Steve told him he had shit for brains and the landlady'd throttle them both. Strange thing was, it seemed like a fair trade. Bucky would take a hiding for Steve to be able to see himself as tall as he felt sometimes. 

He left the mirror where it was, pinned the Henry Armstrong newsprint to the top left corner, shucked off his shirt and compared his muscles to Armstrong's. Not so different. Not so much stringier. He could have a boxer's spirit in him, Bucky thought. They weren't making bank, same as everyone else, but they were sure making more money than Bucky.

The hospital had given Steve an inhaler for his asthma and the instruction to keep it topped up. He'd nodded, said yessir, and then told Bucky over dinner that it was all in his head. Psychosomatic, they called it. "Big words for a little fella," Bucky said mildly, wary. 

"Means it's not real. Means I can get over it just fine on my own," Steve said.

"Eat your taters," Bucky told him sternly. 

After dinner, he shook his cigarette packet and pulled out two; one behind the ear and one between his lips. Bucky had breathed through his open mouth a lot as a kid, but his father had beat the habit out of him. He had overheard his father, more than once, say he had a woman's mouth, and blame his mother for it. Bucky knew he looked good when he smoked. Dames looked. Giggled. Steve used to cup his match for him, but Bucky wouldn't let him come near the smoke after he started trying to hide how much it made him cough. Bucky smoked by the window. Steve cleared away the dishes. 

"I'm outta here," Buck announced, once he'd smoked his first down to cinders.

"Jenny? Wait, it's Betty-Lou now, right?" Steve didn't turn. Kept stacking plates.

"Slow news, kid," Bucky shrugged lightly, slinging his jacket over his shoulder. Betty-Lou had complained his hands didn't wander low enough, and Bucky told her his reputation was jumping three steps ahead of him. She'd grabbed his left hand and touched his fingers down in the wet of her. Ain't here for that, Bucky had muttered. Ain't here for that, Bet, he'd said, and had gone home to Steve and deflected his shielded questions with shrugs and laughter. 

Everyone met right up in the north of Brooklyn where the dregs of Manhattan could cross down and mingle with the masses. Bars with big enough cellars and strong armed boys who'd push aside the crates to make a space for their bare knuckles and bets. There was an entry fee. Bucky clucked his tongue about it; handed over his quarter.

See, Bucky had always come at the world swinging. He fought for his own place, and then he fought for Steve's. Took a few hooks at his Pa once or twice. Came off worse but without regret. He did not have what anyone could call a style, but he was fierce, knew from a young age to bare his teeth and kick out if he was the one on the ground. It got easier once he bulked out, once his forearms were muscled enough that he could take a bruise and then punch back. He could teach Steve what he knew, and Steve wouldn't know any better. Put Steve's arms up in defensive positions. Swung slow. Smoothed out Steve's ruffled hair afterwards.

He was scrappy at twenty one, but not a trained fighter, and the makeshift ring was full of men who'd fought their way up in the world only to fall hard. That kind of thing stung, made a man bitter. They'd all paid their quarter to be there. 

Bucky stood his ground maybe three minutes. An old boy near the back door told him it was half decent for a first-timer and he'd buy Bucky a drink if he came back next week. Bucky went out back of the bar and felt his teeth with his tongue and spat blood. His ankle was fucked from a bad fall. He'd lost the cigarette from behind his swollen ear and the rest were at home. If he'd had something between his teeth he might have been able to walk better on the ankle.

There was no-one around the stairwell up to his and Steve's apartment; Bucky retched up the last of the blood pooled in his mouth, got on his knees and crawled the last few stairs.

He spun Steve a hearty yarn about a B-girl at the bar who was playin' all the fellas, and Bucky wanted her baddest of all. She took his money and drank his beer, he said with a pinkish grin, and gave him a good dance and a hard coupla punches from her main squeeze. "All this over a girl?" Steve muttered, clattering about the kitchen for cloths and vinegar. 

"A damn fine one," Bucky managed. His eyes hurt. His ear was ringing somewhat. Steve looked upset for a few seconds every other minute, then swallowed it; didn't placate Bucky as he hissed at the cleansing of his wounds.

Steve spent a night in August coughing so hard that he vomited over the side of the bed. He wheezed and wheezed and waved off Bucky's attempts to stick the inhaler in his goddamn mouth, and then he gave in and let Bucky hold onto the back of his neck, get the inhaler between his pale, open lips. It was near empty.

He wouldn't let Bucky clean up the floorboards. He begrudgingly let Bucky fetch him fresh water.

They were in arrears in their rent. From when Steve had been in hospital. Bucky had covered the whole thing for that month and hadn't bothered Steve for his half. The landlady shoved a typed up letter under their door and Bucky covered it with his foot before he left for the afternoon so Steve wouldn't notice. 

Bucky went back to the boxing ring four more times. Paid his quarters. Only won bruises and bloody knees. That old patron never showed up again to buy him a drink.

He cradled his pride like he would a broken arm, close to his chest and hidden from view. Had smiles for Steve through his split lips and grins again once they healed. He sold his twelve buck suit for five and didn't know whether to give it to the landlady or the doctor.

When Bucky was seventeen and late home one night, he'd stopped to lean against a high wall and light his Lucky. The matches kept snapping and he swore under his breath. A lean fella offered him a light. There was no one else around. "You charge less than a girl?" Bucky had been asked. He laughed, shallow in his throat, and kept up walking.

Now, he tore down the Henry Armstrong in the bathroom. He looked at himself in the mirror. Breathed through his mouth, licked his lips until they were shining. Rubbed his fists in his eyes to make them big and watery. Rolled the sleeves of his tee right up under the armpits to show off the little bit of muscle he put on in the fights. There was a pinkness to his cheeks that looked like it could be rouge under the wrong lights. 

"You out tonight?" Steve called over his shoulder.

"Don't wait up," Bucky yelled back. He'd got no jacket to sling over his shoulder this time.

Brooklyn Bridge looked real smart this time of night. Guys with dames on their arms sprinting down, gangs of workers making their way home after their hard graft, laughter that was too small to echo in the vast open ceiling of New York City. You could see the stars much cleaner out here, Buck thought, but kept his head low anyway. He was outta breath by the time he got all the way up to Greenwich Village. Remembered to breathe through his mouth; his thick lips.

He walked the streets slow.

When a fella asked him what he did, he replied that he was a boxer. "You win a lotta fights?"

"Yeah," Bucky spat. "All of 'em."

This guy didn't like to stand while he got his dick sucked. They did it far too close to the suburbs, upended a few empty crates for him to park on while Bucky got on his knees; not too dusty down these alleyways, not too much of a stench. He held out his palm and asked for the money upfront. Three crumpled dollar bills for fifteen minutes' work. It was the best going rate Bucky'd ever had, that's for sure. 

That week he topped up Steve's inhaler without telling him. He ripped up the letter from their landlady into eight uneven pieces and threw it in the trash. On Wednesday he bought cheap cuts of beef and made stew. "I got a job interview on the weekend," Steve told him, shovelling down the fatty broth. "Can I borrow your suit? Gotta look sharp enough."

"Too big for your bones," Bucky said grandly, shrugging, and said they'd find him a nice new shirt.

Steve scoffed. "Where the hell at? The dumpster?"

Bucky dry retched around a seven inch cock and didn't complain when it was put straight back between his lips. He bought Steve a white shirt with a real crisp collar.

Bucky was a creature of habit. Lit his cigarettes with matches torn out of printed books from bars. Wiped his mouth hard on the back of his hand before he put his key in the apartment door every time. Held ice to his swollen lips if he could get his hands on it.

Steve wasn't an idiot, and defended this position often. He asked Buck on a Saturday night where he was getting money from. 

"I started going to fights," Bucky shrugged. "Just amateur stuff, nothing serious. I got a mean left hook, y'know." He rapped the side of his head with his knuckles, grinning. "And a tough noggin."

Steve didn't smile back. He just frowned, and he looked very purely sad. It was the same sort of look he had when his mother died. 

"Hey," Bucky said, low and gentle. He had speeches he could give about the greater good, about working up through the world, about the American Dream that neither of them believed in, but instead, he slung his arm around Steve's shoulders, pulled him in close. "Hey. I'm troopin' on."

"Don't do this for me," Steve mumbled into Bucky's neck. "At least do it for yourself. I couldn't bear bein' patronised like that."

"I never do anything for you," Bucky said. He could be so fucking contrary. "I'm too damn selfish."

It was too damn hot but the pollen was up, pollution was up, and they kept the window shut for the sake of Steve's lungs. They slept on one bed and their arms touched and their sweat danced on each others' skin. Steve wheezed more than snored. Wheezed himself awake sometimes, he was so loud. His lips pale and dry. Bucky used now to hearing what a good-lookin' mouth he had.

They put their mouths together. Sweat on their upper lips mingling. It was a kiss. That's what it was. "Sorry," Steve murmured, almost feverish. Bucky kissed him again, two times more, licked at his closed mouth. 

Henry Armstrong didn't win another title that season, and Bucky didn't get into another fight. He did press ups on the apartment floor while Steve laughed and piled books on his back to up the weight. He rolled up his sleeves to show off his arms, and told guys he was a boxer. Got the money upfront. Got on his knees.

*

There is an extraction period before he is shipped out to the Russians. Zola has a sweet girl decipher the American's gibberish and note it all down. It all goes in the file. It all goes to Russia.

*

Natasha hands Steve the file and tells him he might not want to tug on that thread.


End file.
